During a Yelm City Council meeting on Tuesday, June 11, Yelm city councilors unanimously approved a professional services agreement with Kidder Mathews for the consulting and marketing of the city-owned 640-acre parcel, located southwest of the downtown area.
Yelm city attorney Brent Dille reported in February that Yelm originally took ownership of the land in 2005 after a landowner failed to pay their share of a limited improvement district, and the city repossessed the acreage. Dille said the former Yelm City Administrator Michael Grayum allocated American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 funds from the U.S. government during the COVID-19 pandemic for the city to resolve the debt and become the landowner.
“That doesn’t mean that assessment just gets to go away,” Dille said at the February council meeting of how the city ended up buying the acreage. “It stays on the books, and someone is going to end up having to pay that assessment. What we did was borrow a whole bunch of money. … Now, the city owns the 640 acres …”
Kidder Mathews is tasked with helping the city decide how to develop the property.
Mayor Joe DePinto said the contract with Kidder Mathews is for $20,000.
As part of the contract, he said Kidder Mathews will conduct outreach to residents, analyze the current market availability and needs, recommend to the council what the community wants and what could be attractive in today’s real estate market for major developers.
The mayor added that input from residents will take place at a Yelm Community Center event by the end of the year and from direct responses via email. DePinto said June 14 that he expects public outreach will happen in August.
“I don’t know exactly because the consulting firm hasn’t given us an exact timeline. We just signed that contract, and it gives us a scope of what we can and can’t do,” DePinto said on June 14. “Part of the contract is community engagement and getting input from residents here in Yelm.”
Yelm City Administrator Todd Stancil said the city worked extensively with Kidder Mathews to determine what the consulting phase would entail.
“As far as the amount of hours that the original estimate provides of their time and how we want them to use the time, we’ve extended the deadline to wrap up the consulting phase to the end of the year, so there’s no rush,” Stancil said.
Stancil added that he wants Kidder Mathews to take its time and involve public input from local stakeholders, community members and Yelm city councilors.
“I spoke to them yesterday and they’re ready to get started and start working with all of us and surrounding properties to hopefully come up with a great option for the council to consider,” Stancil said.
